Those who work hard all week long and just need some rest and relaxation, escape from their daily grind for awhile. They likely believe that they are too tired to really think about how their country should be run.
It is not unusual for Americans to hear the talking heads on television or on the radio comparing contemporary America to the Roman Empire. It is somewhat ironic that Volume I of Edward Gibbons’ landmark book, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published in 1776, the same year that Thomas Jefferson wrote The Declaration of Independence, and America, as a nation, was first conceived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At the same time that this new nation — a beacon shining on a hill — was coming of age, Gibbons was analyzing how Rome — the largest empire of the Classical era — collapsed. I imagine that America’s talking heads have been doing to America what Gibbons did to Rome since our nation’s inception.
Like our contemporary talking heads, Rome had some talking heads of its own. None of these talking heads were more famous than the Roman poet, Juvenal. In Juvenal’s “Wrong Desire is the Source of Suffering” (Satire X), he makes his own claims about the deterioration of civil society in Rome. Juvenal writes: “Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself andanxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses” (Satire 10.77-81). Essentially, Juvenal suggests that bread and circuses are the only things that matter to his contemporaries.